Bob Hunter commentary: Rumblings

Friday

Crew general manager Mark McCullers isn't saying so, but team insiders believe he is unhappy about Columbus' tepid response to the club's desire for a training camp/soccer complex.

Crew general manager Mark McCullers isn't saying so, but team insiders believe he is unhappy about Columbus' tepid response to the club's desire for a training camp/soccer complex.

The Crew is considering five communities to serve as host of its new complex. Of the five, London, Newark and Delaware County produced proposal documents in the 50-page range with schematics, utility data, land-grade data, financing, etc. Canal Winchester's proposal was about five pages long.

Columbus sent a three-paragraph letter of interest.

It will be interesting to see if Columbus ups the ante should one of the three front-runners make a bid to include a stadium in their plans. Though only 7 years old, Crew Stadium was constructed quickly and lacks many of the amenities of the Major League Soccer stadiums that have followed it.

It is not outrageous to suggest that team officials might seriously consider an opportunity to play in a new stadium that was attached to a training complex, and the financial benefits might make it worthwhile to a community willing to build it.

Former Ohio State players Nick Mangold and Donte Whitner and one-time Buckeye Mike Furrey of Hilliard were among 22 players named to the NFL's 2007 all-underrated team by Dave Gadow of NFL.com.

Gadow on New York Jets center Mangold: "As a rookie he stepped right in for the departed Kevin Mawae and the team didn't miss a beat. While fellow top pick D'Brickashaw Ferguson had his ups and downs at tackle, Mangold was as solid as a rock in the middle. He looks like a fixture at the spot for at least the next 12 years."

On Buffalo safety Whitner: "He may have been a rookie, but he sure didn't play that way. Despite being derided for taking Whitner as high as they did in the draft (eighth overall), the Bills laughed last as Whitner instantly became the team's top defensive back in '06."

And on the Lions' Furrey, who walked on at Ohio State before transferring to Northern Iowa: "Entering his fourth NFL season, Furrey had 21 career catches. In 2006, he notched 98 to go with 1,086 yards and six touchdowns. Furrey has limited explosiveness (as evidenced by his zero catches for more than 31 yards), but he shined as a possession receiver and few people outside the fantasy realm even noticed."

Hopeful of celebrating being a first-round pick, former Ohio State guard Daequan Cook planned an NBA draft party last night at a Dayton hotel. A Cook adviser, Al Powell, told the Dayton Daily News that the event was open to the public and admission was $20. The party began when Cook was taken 21st Philadelphia and then traded to Miami.

Mark Dantonio obviously learned a thing or two in his days at Ohio State. The first-year Michigan State coach installed three countdown clocks in the football complex, all ticking down to the kickoff Nov. 3 against Michigan in Spartan Stadium.

Several NBA teams are said to be interested in the Cavaliers' Anderson Varejao, a restricted free agent, and general manager Danny Ferry has made it clear that Varejao isn't untouchable. The Cavs can match any offer he receives, but it seems unlikely they will be willing to match a deal they consider unreasonable.

Several teams are expected to bid on Varejao -- the Houston Rockets are thought to be especially interested -- and he isn't likely to be a starter in Cleveland. He made $945,000 last season and is poised to make considerably more, even though it is difficult to find comparable players in his situation to help determine contract value.

The Cavs might decide to let Sasha Pavlovic go to save some cap room and keep Varejao. Or they could sign a free-agent guard such as 6-foot-3 Steve Blake, who has been on their radar for a while.

In 2002, former Blue Jackets center Tyler Wright mixed it up with childhood friend Darcy Hordichuk, who was playing for the Nashville Predators, and Wright pronounced their friendship over. At the time, Wright said Hordichuk "grew up three houses down from us" but he was furious because Hordichuk "sucker-punched me."

Good news for the Kamsack, Saskatchewan, crowd: Wright, now retired, recently was a member of Hordichuk's wedding party.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said that if major cable TV players such as Time Warner and Comcast aren't getting close to agreeing to deals with the new Big Ten Network by the league's football meetings July 31, he's prepared to have Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, Penn State's Joe Paterno and the league's other coaches advise fans to switch to DirecTV, a satellite system that will carry the network.

No word yet on how the coaches feel about moonlighting as satellite TV salesmen.

West Virginia sports information director Shelly Poe reportedly is mulling an offer to do public relations for the Ohio State football program. The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette reported that Tressel has been assisting in the recruitment of Poe, who was the first woman in the nation to become SID at a Division I-A school when she was promoted to the West Virginia job in 1988.

Soccer America reports there is an assistant coach in MLS' Eastern Conference who is unhappy, which is like saying there is a player on the Indians who would like to play more. After all, there are only seven teams in the conference.

So when Crew assistant Robert Warzycha was asked whether he was the disgruntled one, he had a good laugh. "No, it's not me," he said. "(Crew coach) Sigi (Schmid) asked me the same thing."

Former Ohio State men's basketball assistant Dave Spiller was hired as coach of the girls team at Delaware Christian. Spiller has been working as a personal skills trainer since leaving the Ohio State staff before the 2001-02 season.

Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Jay Feaster said he won't buy out the final two years of Marc Denis' three-year, $8.6 million contract and that he expects the former Blue Jackets goalie at training camp. That's apparently fine with Denis.

"I'm not one who jumps ship when the boat gets rocked a little bit," Denis told the St. Petersburg Times. "That's not how I operate."

Denis is expected to engage in a lively competition with Johan Holmqvist and Karri Ramo for playing time, after not being in uniform for the Lightning's playoff series with the New Jersey Devils.

"Marc is a very bright young man," Feaster said. "I'm sure it's not lost on him that from a career standpoint, the way things ended up was not productive for him."

Denis, 29, was last among the league's 44 listed goaltenders in save percentage at .883 last season.

If the NHL's switch to from ESPN to Versus didn't motivate local fans to invest their time in trying to find the channel on their cable systems, this might: Versus will air 18 college football games this season starting with a doubleheader Sept. 1 (Virginia at Wyoming and Arizona at Brigham Young). All games feature teams from the Big 12, Pacific-10 and Mountain West conferences, so ignoring the channel remains a viable option for many Ohio State fans.

Scott Hatteberg has been batting leadoff for the Cincinnati Reds, including during their recent three-game series at Oakland. It was A's general manager Billy Beane who recognized Hatteberg's on-base potential and jump-started his career by plugging him into the everyday Oakland lineup in 2002.

"I owe him a lot for the opportunity," Hatteberg said. "I don't know what I'd be doing. I could be working at Blockbuster."

Sports Illustrated featured former Bengals quarterback David Klingler in a recent "Where are they now?" feature.

Don't try guessing: Klingler is at the Dallas Theological Seminary, studying to become an Old Testament scholar. He says he is already proficient in Greek, Latin, French, German, Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac, so we're guessing that the time he spent studying coach Dave Shula's playbook must have been good for something.

Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch.

bhunter@dispatch.com

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